


What Doesn't Break Us

by In_agony_and_ecstasy



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Anniversary, Apologies, Bi!Jean, Coming Out, Connie's POV, Declarations Of Love, Fear of Rejection, Fights, Long Lasting Relationship, M/M, Make up sex, Pregnancy, Rejection, Trans Male Character, gender euphoria, non-dysphoric Connie Springer, trans!Connie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 06:45:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6970504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/In_agony_and_ecstasy/pseuds/In_agony_and_ecstasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connie and Jean have been rekindling their relationship for barely a month, after nearly a year of being torn apart by Connie's newfound identity. Even though Connie knows that Jean has come to terms with his identity, he now has a whole new reason to fear Jean's rejection, and he can't get it off his mind for even one night. Even if that night happens to be the night he and Jean planned to go out for their anniversary. He has to tell Jean now. And all he can do is hope for the best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Doesn't Break Us

**Author's Note:**

> It's been forever since I've published something and I'm really sorry about that! I had a very serious Jeanconnie spell during which I couldn't focus on any other ship but them, and of course, couldn't figure out what I wanted to write for them.
> 
> I'm still not 100% satisfied with this, but it will have to do. If I warm up to it, there might be a sequel or two.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it! And, just so you guys know, my focus now is to update Our Deepest Secrets ASAP.

Jean called me at about three to verify our dinner plans. I stood in the bathroom, hunched over the toilet, debating whether or not to answer. I answered. He’d find it weird if I didn’t.

“Hello?” I asked, trying to clear my throat so my voice wouldn’t sound raspy.

“Hey, we still on for tonight?” he asked.

“Uh…why?” Stalling wouldn’t help much, but I needed time to think.

“Um…because you called in sick this morning?”

“Oh, right, duh,” I said, laughing nervously. “Um, actually…”

“You want to back out.”

I winced. I didn’t _want_ to. I _wanted_ to go on the anniversary date we’d planned. I wanted to go to the movies and eat somewhere fancy for probably the only time this year because we were broke. Well, not broke. But not well-off enough to waste money on going out to eat places that had dress codes whenever we felt like.

But I couldn’t go out with him. Not because I didn’t feel well, even though I didn’t, but because I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold off telling him for even one more night. All week I kept telling myself _just this week_. Just six more days. Then five. Only four. And so on. And here I was on the last day I wanted to endure, and I knew I couldn’t do it. Every day that passed without telling him weighed down on me harder and harder. I felt like I was sinking into the earth.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m really sorry. I can’t. I’m still throwing up.”

He paused. “ _Still_? Jesus, Connie. You better schedule a doctor’s appointment.”

Normally I would argue that we couldn’t afford it. Or at least, that it wasn’t bad enough to spend the money we did have on it. But it was bad enough. I had to go. Tomorrow. 

“I’m going to,” I said. 

“Do you think it’s the testosterone?” 

I pressed my hand against my stomach, now lightly fluffed with a happy trail. I wasn’t going to tell him over the phone. “Yeah, uh…look, just. Hurry home, okay?” 

“I’m on my way.”

I nodded, before feeling stupid because I was on the phone. “Okay. Love you. Bye.”

I hung up before he could say anything else. Then I flushed the toilet, brushed my teeth, and left the bathroom. All I felt like doing was laying down in bed for like, ever. But even if I wasn’t so wired from being constantly nauseated, thinking about Jean’s reaction would keep me up.

I never thought I’d have to fear his rejection like this again. But I leaned against the wall beside the front door, just like I did ten months ago. But that time, it was night out. And winter. Snow blurred past outside the windows, and I remembered thinking that if we got in a fight, I couldn’t possibly leave and neither could he. Not unless we wanted to spend the night in the lobby of our apartment complex’s welcome center. 

That time, I woke him up in the middle of the night. 

“Huh? Connie? What do you want?” he mumbled as I nudged him awake. 

“Can we talk for a second?” 

“Can it wait? You know, until morning? Like normal people?”

“Not really.”

He sighed thoroughly to display how greatly I had inconvenienced him, but followed me out into the living room. While he sat, I paced in circles around the coach until I realized I couldn’t focus while walking. I leaned against the wall and looked him in the eyes. Though his expression was tired, his body held no tension, no rigidity, no sign that he was angry with me or agitated. 

“Come on. Tell me. What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Okay, look. You know how I…like, I’m really…”

I continued to stammer over my words for a minute while he watched with raised eyebrows and half-lidded eyes. 

“Constance,” Jean said, “Just say it.”

“I know that…you like how I look. Right?”

His face crumpled up in confusion, and he pinched the bridge of his nose as if he had to focus his gaze. “What?... _What_?”

“You like my body. Like, the way it is. You know.”

He let another sigh. “Uh, yeah?”

“So what if…I told you, I wanted to change it?”

“What like…cut your hair? Get a tattoo? Go ahead, hon, I don’t give a shit. You don’t need my permission.”

“No, Jean,” I said. “Not like that.”

“Okay, so then…” he tilted his head back, trying to think of something else. “You want to get your boobs done? Or a nose job or something? Why? For me? ‘Cause that’s like…the last thing I’d want.”

Though my stomach had already been twisting with nerves, now it felt like my insides were being constricted. I swiveled from one hip to the other just to prove blood was still circulating. Letting out a huff of air, I shook my head. “Kind of. I mean, I…I don’t want to look like this, anymore. I want to –”

God, it was so hard to say. He’d never understand. He’d never see it coming.

“I want to look more like you,” I said, “Or uh…well, men. A man. And not for you, ha, obviously.” I tapped my feet and fingers against the floor and wall. My lip quivered as I spoke. “But for me. Because I am one.”

A long moment of silence passed between us. I held my breath until he spoke. 

“You’re…transgender? Like, born in the wrong body, or whatever?” 

I grimaced. I didn’t like that description. Because I didn’t feel like my body was “wrong”. How could a body be _wrong_? It didn’t make sense to me. My body was my body. And sure, I wanted to look differently, but I didn’t feel like I wanted a different body. I didn’t want someone else’s body. I had my own. What other body would I have? 

“Yeah,” I said, deciding not to get into any of that right now. “I’m transgender.”

Jean’s expression wasn’t angry or hurt or upset at all. He looked like he was lost, and needed to ask for directions. He looked around the room, then looked me up and down.

“But you’ve never – I mean, don’t transgender people like..? You’ve never seemed –”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. Something told me he’d be significantly more coherent if I’d told him during the day. Probably angrier too. I sat beside him and held on to one of his hands.

“What I mean is,” he said. “you’ve never… _seemed_ like a guy. You’ve never acted like one. Or – or seemed uncomfortable with the way you look at all.”

“Okay so, what does a guy act like?” I said. I almost laughed, because I’d already said this before in different circumstances to different people. _Okay so, what does a black person act like?_

Jean scoffed. “You know what the fuck I mean, Con.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t know what you mean. What was I supposed to do? Rehearse? Like, I’ve always been myself around you. I don’t know how to be anyone else. And I don’t know why that means I’m not a guy. Since, you know, I am.”

“I didn’t know,” he choked. He looked me in the eyes. “Did you? Did you always know?”

My chest ached and I could feel the features of my face soften. He just wanted to understand, after all. “No,” I said, “I didn’t.”

“Aren’t you supposed to? If you’re trans?” He looked at me now, and his eyes were tear-rimmed and bloodshot. His skin had gone sickly pale. 

I swallowed. I guessed most trans people did. Most of them probably grew up uncomfortable in their bodies, experienced dysphoria, or whatever. Most of them probably felt like the way they presented and the gender roles they participated in didn’t match how they felt. But I never had. I bought clothes I liked, and acted without thinking, just being myself, all my life. I liked wearing makeup, and didn’t hate having long hair, and shaving never bothered me any. Most my friends were girls and most of them were attracted to men too. I never felt out of place around them. I dressed more on the “tom boy” end of the spectrum, but even then the boyish clothes I wore were still bought in the girls’ section. 

It was only recently that I understood. One day while Jean was at work, and I did laundry, and the only clean clothes in the house were his. The day I wore men’s clothes for the first time and felt a flood of pure ecstasy rush through my veins, because somehow I knew I found somewhere I belonged. Not in men’s clothes, exactly. But in a man’s life. 

There was nothing wrong with being a woman, but I wasn’t one. And no matter how comfortable I was in my skin or the way I presented around others or the way people saw me, that didn’t change anything. I felt in my gut and my head and my soul that I was a man and couldn’t deny that even while living life as a woman comfortably. And though I wasn’t unhappy, I knew I’d be happier if I lived my life as my true self. “Maybe you’re supposed to know earlier. But when do I ever know something I’m supposed to?” I asked, nudging him gently, to lighten the mood. 

Despite himself, he huffed out a humorless laugh. “No shit.”

We were quiet for a moment, both of us sitting in our dark apartment overwhelmed with thoughts. My heartbeat pulsed through every pore. I could hardly breathe. 

“I just gotta know what you’re thinking before I explode,” I whispered, unable to wait a second longer. 

“What, do you think I’m gonna leave you or something?” 

I swallowed wrong and had to clear my throat. “I don’t know.”

“Well, I’m not. You should have known I wouldn’t.”

“Sorry.” I swallowed a sob, but he heard the hitch in my throat anyway. 

He shook his head, suddenly worried, and wrapped his arm around me. “All I mean is, I want you to believe I love you enough that this wouldn’t change anything.”

“But it will, Jean. Everything will change.”

“So, what, you’re gonna start pricking your ass with a needle? And wearing different clothes, or whatever? I can handle that.”

“Eventually I’ll look like a man,” I said. Or what everyone thought a man should look like. 

He shrugged. “I’ve fucked men before. I like them too.”

I snorted. “That’s not what I meant. I won’t look like _me_ to you anymore. I won’t look like the Connie you started dating and, you know, love and everything.”

He pulled me into him and I rested my head against his chest, which was already damp from him crying earlier. 

“I don’t care what you look like. I’m not leaving you.”

I smiled at that. “Even if I chop off my boobs?”

He inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “Fuck, I’m gonna miss them.”

I snorted into his chest and he laughed too, wrapping both his arms around me.

“Don’t worry. Won’t happen for a long time,” I said. 

His fingers played with my hair, tugging on individual curls and stretching them out, before twirling them around one finger and making a new curl. Almost always, he played with my hair like this when we were sitting together. I wondered what he’d do once I got rid of it. 

“I love you,” I said to him.

He kissed my forehead. “I love you too. Can I go back to sleep now? I got work in the morning. So do you.”

I laughed, and for the first time felt the relief in my chest, and anxiety lifting right out my lungs. “Yeah, let’s go.”

He wrapped his arm around my waist on the way into our bedroom. In bed, he spooned me just like he always had.

Thinking about it now made my chest hurt. Coming out had gone well enough. But soon after I started to transition, or rather, as soon as my transitioning became apparent, he grew distant. 

It got to the point that he was sleeping on the coach. Not because I kicked him out, but because he just never came to bed. 

For the most part, I still dressed like always had. Everyone already called me Connie and I was fine with that. No one had to know that Constance had changed to Connor. No one at work knew that I stopped shaving my legs and armpits. Or that the reason my voice was squeaking wasn’t because of a stubborn cold I couldn’t shake.

Like always, I wore makeup. It wasn’t a chore. I wore less than before but more because I realized that living my life as a woman had made me act differently than I wanted to. Wearing makeup wasn’t the problem. But wearing so much, and wearing it so impeccably every day was so exhausting it wasn’t worth it. 

My ears were pierced three times. I used to wear dangly earrings and flashing jewelry all the time. But after I started taking testosterone I wore mostly studs, and a necklace Jean had bought me for Christmas. I shaved my head, but because I was black people were either too afraid they’d offend me if they brought it up or thought it wasn’t unusual for a black woman to have a buzzed head. I didn’t know. And I didn’t care. 

But Jean did. He told me I looked nice after I buzzed my head. He could see my face better. Made my eyes prettier. 

But then he stuttered. “Wait, not prettier. Uh…I don’t know. Handsomer.”

“It’s okay if you call me pretty, Jean.” And it was. I never minded it before. And even if I had, I minded how frustrated and uncomfortable he’d become a lot more. I was becoming myself, and he was no longer my boyfriend. He didn’t call me pet names anymore. Or take pictures of me when I wasn’t looking. He didn’t ask me to wear the red thong instead of the boy shorts, even though he always groaned every time I wore them before. And suddenly he couldn’t compliment me anymore.

I wanted to talk to him about it but he didn’t. He never wanted to talk about anything. He did everything else I wanted and more without asking. He switched pronouns no problem. Introduced me as his boyfriend to people we were meeting and always defended me before I even got the chance to be offended. Almost as soon as I came out to him, he told his mom.

While talking to her, he didn’t think I could hear because I was in the bathroom about to shower. But I pressed my ear against the door and listened.

“God, Mom, I don’t know. That’s not really the point.”

A moment passed. He sighed twice. His mom always rambled on

“What – why the fuck would I need to make an appointment with – It’s not like, a fucking mental thing, okay? It’s not like he’s…I don’t know. Bipolar or something. He doesn’t need medication.” 

He didn’t give her as long to talk this time. Instead, the distinct sound of one of our kitchen chairs crashing against the hardwood broke the silence. “No, he doesn’t. Stop saying – look, _he_ doesn’t. What _he_ needs is – is – is support. From everyone. Not just me. That means you.”

A long moment passed without any noise, and I thought maybe he’d hung up. 

But then he spoke under his breath, “It’s not up to me, so quit asking me that. The bottom line is…He’s an important part of my life. By extension he’s an important part of yours. Treat him like it.”

I’d never heard Jean talk to his mom like that before. When I heard his footsteps walking toward the bathroom, I hurried to turn on the shower and undress, so it wouldn’t like I was eavesdropping. I stepped into the shower as he opened the door. 

“I told her,” he said.

I swallowed. “How’d it go?”

“Okay. She’ll come around.”

He said it like it was no big deal. Like he’d just told his mom he couldn’t make it home for Christmas. He said it like that just for me. So I wouldn’t worry. Even though that was impossible. 

I cleared my throat. “That’s good.”

The door shut and I spent the first twenty minutes of my shower just standing there staring at the porcelain tiles. 

When I told my parents, Jean was there for me again. He held me the whole time I spoke, because I had to do it over the phone. He let me cry for hours afterward into his chest, even though the phone call itself had lasted longer than an hour. I’d broken my parents’ hearts. And their rejection had broken mine. I didn’t know when we would speak again. How long it would take them to understand. If they ever would.

All I could think was at least I still had Jean. 

Almost. I almost still had Jean. 

Eventually I couldn’t stand it. 

I was lying in bed, rolling back and forth trying to get comfortable alone, and unable to. Instead of crying that night, I decided I had to talk to him. Or everything would only get worse. I told myself if I had the courage to come out to him, then I must have the courage to ask him to sleep next to me.

In the living room, he sprawled out across the couch, almost falling off of it. I patted his shoulder until he woke up. 

Startled, he asked, “Connie? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

God, it had really been that long hadn’t it? So many weeks had passed he assumed something had to be wrong just for me to approach him.

I pulled on his wrist. “Come to bed, Jean.”

He opened his mouth to protest, only to remember that he didn’t have an excuse not to. There’d never been any reason for him to sleep on the couch to begin with. 

“Okay.” He stood up and followed me. I held his hand the whole way, not letting him go.

Once we laid down, I wrapped his arm around me and inched backward into his chest. 

“I miss us,” I admitted to him.

“I miss you,” he whispered.

That stung and I had to control my voice. Testosterone didn’t stop me from crying. “I’m still me.”

“I know,” he said. “Really, I know. It’s just. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

“You said you don’t care how I look.”

He kissed my cheek. “I don’t.”

“Doesn’t seem like it.” 

He held me tighter. My hands slid up and down his forearms, hairier than mine but not by much anymore. I was starting to look the way I felt. I was making a home out of the body I was given. If it weren’t for Jean, this would be the happiest I’d ever been.

Jean sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Connie. I miss you. And not just because you’re different now. I’m keeping myself away from you.”

I swallowed. “Why?”

“I don’t know. When I’m holding you it’s hard to remember why.”

I let out a shaky breath. “Quit being such a sap.”

He laughed, breathily against my neck. “I’m not trying to be. I’d never be romantic on purpose.”

I snorted. “You wouldn’t even know how.”

He kissed along my neck. “Connie,” he breathed, “I really do miss this. I’m sorry.”

I bit my lip, arching my back and pushing myself against him as his lips roamed over my shoulder blade. His fingers slid up my tank top, but his hand hesitated even as his lips wrapped around my earlobe. He didn’t know how to be with me. Didn’t know how to touch me anymore, if he should still touch me the way he used to. He should. I wanted him to know that he should. I hitched myself up onto one elbow to yank my tank-top off. Then I placed his palm against my breast. He sighed against my ear. Pressed himself against me. For the first time in forever it seemed, I could tell he wanted me. I had been beginning to think he never would again.

His hand slid underneath the waistband of my underwear. His fingers slipped between my lips and I moaned as he began rotating the pads of his fingertips against my clit. 

Within seconds I was panting. I’d spent so much time worrying we were growing apart that I hadn’t thought about this. I hadn’t thought about touching him or being touched. Even if the testosterone heightened my sex-drive, I’d been way too distracted with the condition of our relationship to care. And now that it was happening it was almost too much. 

I reached behind me until I could stroke him over his sweatpants. He groaned. His body tensed. His hand halted. All of this was so that he could pace himself. So that he could concentrate. He was as desperate and sensitive as I was. My fingers curled under his waistband and he eased his pants down enough to expose himself. Then he pulled my underwear to the side, so that I wouldn’t have to sit up and pull them off. 

“Shit,” he said, “Condom.” 

His hand barely fell away from me before I pulled him back. “No, no. Come on. Can’t wait any longer.”

“But – Connie –”

“Testosterone stops my period. We’re good.”

He didn’t wait any longer. He pulled my underwear to the side again. I held my leg up and arched my back so that he could ease inside of me. Jean whimpered as he bottomed out. I’d never let him fuck me without a condom before. I doubted he’d ever done it without a condom with anyone. 

His whole body tightened around me, as if hanging on for his life. And he began thrusting. 

He’d never sounded so sexy. He couldn’t stop groaning and saying my name and thanking me. I would have laughed, if I wasn’t in the same state, gasping and grinding back down on him, trying to find the right angle. 

And when I moaned, “ _There_ ,” he let go, pounding into me harder than he ever had before. His hand pinned my hips against his and he held onto the headboard with the other to ground himself. We were feverish, raw, primal in the way our nails stuck into each other’s skin as we hung on to each other, and so tender in the way his lips dragged along my neck and shoulders, and kissed them. 

He whispered into my ear, “Sorry, honey. Can’t – can’t hold back.”

I shook my head to reassure him. I didn’t want him to hold back. It felt so good. I didn’t even need him to use his hand or mouth. The pleasure swelled inside of me and my body shook from it. 

“Fuck,” he breathed, “Honey, g-gonna come. Fuck, ’m gonna come.”

“Me too,” I gasped, “Just – just a little harder.” 

With that, his hand hitched my leg up for leverage and he bit into my shoulder as he sped up even more. I moaned until I lost my voice, until I lost my breath, and the pleasure crashed through me when I came. I tightened around Jean, and again he whimpered and thanked me, for what I didn’t know, as he rocked hard and deep and unevenly until his hips hitched, he gasped, and just trembled for a while. 

Our bodies went slack. We panted in the aftermath, both of us covered in sweat, our clothes damp from it. My underwear was soaked. Every joint in my body had been unhinged. I was drained, and elated and couldn’t stop smiling. 

Jean finally pulled out. He hissed as he did so, over-sensitive now that he’d come. 

Together we peeled our clothes off. Then the sheets. When we climbed back in, he pressed his naked body against mine to keep me warm. His fingers trailed over my buzzed head and along my body. Over my breast and through my happy trail. His toes curled against my ankles, tugging gently on my leg hair. 

I rolled over to face him. We kissed, without any urgency or energy. He touched me the way he used to, and I felt comfortable for the first time in months in my own bed. Instead of tangling his fingers in my curls, his fingertips dragged along my scalp, just behind my ear, as if he was pulling hair back. Somehow though, I didn’t feel like he was doing it because he missed my hair. 

“Be honest,” I said. 

“I always try to be.”

I smiled, because he’d said this so many times. Not just to me, but a lot to me, because I had a tendency to start off conversations with “Be honest” when I was feeling insecure. “Be honest, are these noodles undercooked?” and “Be honest, did I write this essay like a high-schooler?” and “Be honest, etc, etc…” 

“Are you bummed I don’t look like me anymore?” 

He took a moment to think, while still running his fingers over my head. “You still look like you. You’re always gonna look like you ‘cause you’re always gonna be you. And it doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll take you any way you are.”

I swallowed, trying to stop myself from getting too emotional. “But I am different, Jean. I’m a different me now…” And though I didn’t plan to outright ask him this, I suddenly couldn’t beat around the bush anymore. Subtlety and hints and interpretations weren’t my thing. I needed to be blunt, or I’d never know for sure. “Do you still love me? This me, I mean.”

“I love this you the most,” he mumbled, already half asleep. He kissed my forehead absentmindedly. 

I grinned. Sometimes, he actually knew just what to say at just the right time. Maybe only once a year, but still.

“Thank you,” I whispered, so I wouldn’t wake him.

Whenever I thought about that night, I felt so certain that Jean and I would make it. If we could make it through my transition, and still be happy together, then obviously we must be able to handle anything. Obviously my transition would be the hardest thing we’d ever have to tackle together.

And now, when I thought about that night, what used to be perhaps my happiest memory, I was just pissed at myself. I’d done a lot of fucking stupid things in my life. Jumping off my Grandma’s roof into a snowbank. Patching a tire with duct tape. Swallowing a spoonful of cinnamon. These were the sorts of stupid things I expected of myself.

But letting Jean fuck me without a condom? 

Stupidest thing I’d ever done, hands down. And it was like I knew it was the stupidest thing I’d ever do _while_ it was happening, and I still let him. I wanted him so bad. I had missed him so much. And I couldn’t wait twenty more seconds while he slid on a condom.

I shook my head, and tears fell off my chin. I’d been standing for too long. My legs were falling asleep. My stomach was still twisting. I didn’t want to go lay down, because I’d probably have to get up in five minutes and throw up again. But I also didn’t want to be bent over the toilet throwing up when Jean walked in the door.

So, apparently, the solution was to just sink, until my butt hit the carpet, and hug my knees to my chest and cry some more. I kept wiping my face, so I could have some hope that I wouldn’t look like a complete mess. But it didn’t matter. I cried and cried, and blew my nose in a wash cloth. Then laughed at how gross I was being. And of course that was when the door swung open. 

Jean didn’t see me immediately, but as soon as he shut the door and faced the hallway to our bedroom, he lunged forward and crouched beside me. His arm slid around my shoulders. He pressed his palm against my forehead. I let him examine my condition, without even looking at him. I felt like this was all my fault. Like I had betrayed him, somehow. Mostly I was just scared he’d blame me for everything. 

Things had only been better for a month. A month of reconnecting, rekindling, re-falling-in-love and committing. One month to make up for ten months of tearing ourselves apart. It wasn’t enough. We were still too raw and fragile. A breeze could break us. 

“Huh,” he said. “You don’t have a fever.”

“Jean, I’m pregnant,” I blurted. And then I processed what I had blurted. I couldn’t believe I’d gotten the words out. When I came out to him I couldn’t stop stammering and now I spit it out like it was my name.

I whipped my head his direction, only to find his dumbstruck expression. I wiped my face again and sniffled, waiting for him to say _something_. But he just kept staring into nothing like he was a broken machine.

“Jean? Jean,” I said, patting his leg. “I’m pregnant. Say something.”

“Because…?” he started. “Because of that _one time_? Are you fucking kidding me?”

He wasn’t looking at me as I shook my head. He covered his with both of his hands, rubbing his temples and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I said. “I thought – the testosterone – I mean, I’d been on it for ten months! And I didn’t have a period for like…at least two. I thought we were good…” He said nothing, and I talked just to fill the space. “I swear I thought we were good.”

I wasn’t sure if what I was saying was true. At the time I wanted to believe it, because I wanted to justify being stupid. But now I had no idea what I really believed. If I really believed we were good. 

I was pregnant. That was all that mattered. And I still didn’t know how Jean felt. 

“Jean?” I asked. “Talk to me. I swear I’ve – I need you to say something or I’ll freak out.”

He pulled his hands away from his temples to look at me. Then he pressed his lips together in a thin line. “I bought you flowers. I left them in the car. But they were expensive as shit so I hope they were the good kind.”

I furrowed my eyebrows and shook my head in confusion. “Did you, like, hear me?”

“I bought you flowers, because…you would have liked them. You know, before your transition and everything. And they’re the kind of thing I’d buy a girl. But not the type of thing I’d buy a guy. But I bought them for you, because you keep telling me that I don’t have to – that you’re not a different person. And I don’t have to be different with you. And I think I’m kind of starting to get that.”

My head thudded against the wall. He was in shock. I had put my boyfriend in shock. 

With the hand that wasn’t wrapped around my shoulders, he held the hand I patted his leg with. “What I mean is, I started dating you two years ago today. And, ten months ago you came out and I thought you’d be a different person. And you’re not. You look different, but you’re the same person. For a while, I didn’t think you were. And I thought –” He cleared his throat, and only then did I realize he was getting emotional. “I thought we weren’t going to make it. I thought about breaking up with you for a while. Not because you were trans. But – but – I don’t know. Because I was being an asshole.”

“What’s new,” I said, sarcastically, just because I couldn’t help but to joke when I heard something that hurt me like what he said did. 

He smiled. “I’m so glad I didn’t. I love you. I know I’ll love you no matter what. Because I’ve already been tested in a way most people never will be by their significant other.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way before. It made me feel a bit better. 

“So anyway,” Jean said, clearing his throat. “Enough of that.” He pulled his hand away from mine to reach into his pocket. I didn’t get a look at what he pulled out because he shoved it right into my hand. A leathery case I recognized instantly. But I opened my hand anyway, maybe just to check if it was real. If I hadn’t somehow imagined it. 

“Jean,” I choked, accidentally.

“What do you think?” 

I opened the ring case. The band was silver, with a single circle diamond mantled in the center. Feminine, a ring clearly meant for a woman, but not girly. Probably the exact type of ring I would have picked out for myself. 

I looked up at him. “Are you serious? At the restaurant –”

“I was going to propose. Probably even get on my knee and everything. Thank God I didn’t have to do that shit. And in front of people.” He grimaced, clearly picturing what was probably his worst nightmare and I laughed.

“I like it better this way.” I leaned against his shoulder.

“Well?” he demanded. “Are you just going to leave me hanging or what? Answer before I die, already.”

I choked on a laugh, but managed a nod. “I mean, yeah. You didn’t even have to ask.”

He grinned – really genuinely grinned – and leaned down to kiss me. He cupped my cheeks in his hands and held that kiss for a long time. 

“Do I have vomit-breath?” I asked, when our lips parted.

He snorted. “God, Connie.”

“Sorry. But like, kinda been throwing up all day.”

The slightest bit of worry crept back into his expression. But he got right to the point. “Do you want to keep it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’d have to stop taking T”

“I know.”

“And…I mean, what about top surgery?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know much right now. What do you want?”

He bit his lip. “I think…I wouldn’t ask you to marry me if I couldn’t see myself having kids with you. I didn’t expect it to happen now. And I didn’t expect to have a biological kid, since, you know. I figured we’d adopt like gay couples do. But…I think…that if you want to keep it…I want to keep it too.”

I swallowed, and placed my hand against my gut. It was really strange to think a little embryo was inside of me growing. Partly because I sometimes forgot I had the anatomy I had. Like, I started living my life as a man now, and apparently that meant I had a phantom dick. And partly also because…I never wanted to be pregnant. Sure, I saw myself having kids one day. But even before I knew I was trans, I sort of loathed the idea of going through pregnancy and labor. 

But Jean placed his hand against my stomach, and I thought about everything that gesture meant. Him placing his hand over my stomach for the next month, while I dealt with morning sickness. Him running out to buy me ice cream and pickles or whatever I’d be craving in the middle of the night. Him resting headphones against my stomach so the baby could listen to music. Him putting up with mood swings. Again, since testosterone had done the same thing. Him taking me to the hospital when the time finally came.

And maybe I wouldn’t have to go through labor. Yesterday, I thought I’d be paying for my top surgery. And I’d spend weeks recovering from that. But I could have a C-section instead. If I had a baby, I’d need to breast feed. And now that I thought about it…my breasts had never bothered me that much. It was like – 

Even just that thought changed everything. It unfurled something in my mind, from the ring and flowers Jean bought me, all the way down to the makeup I still wore occasionally and the bras I wore at home instead of the binders I wore while out in public. So much of my gender had nothing to do with how I looked, or what other people thought my gender was, based on how I looked, and did I ever even truly _want_ to get top surgery? To pay that much to remove _parts of my body_? Parts of my body that had never bothered me any? 

Why hadn’t I seen that before? I’d intended to get top surgery only because that was what trans men do. That was the next step. The rule. But I wasn’t like other trans men. Or, the trans men I was most aware of, the trans man my doctor and parents expected me to be, the trans man everyone assumed was The Only Kind of Trans Man. 

Until now, I had always felt sort of insecure about this. Like I wasn’t Man Enough. I wasn’t Dysphoric Enough. Trans Enough. 

But Jean’s hand rubbed my stomach and I knew I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care if I was Man Enough or Dysphoric Enough or Trans Enough because I had to be Me Enough first. 

And The Me I was right now, The Me Jean fell in love with, The Me I had been then when we met and The Me I was now, partly transitioned and engaged to Jean – That Me wanted this baby.

I wanted long nights coddling the baby with a tired husband. I wanted to see Jean carrying a car seat while I held a baby that wasn’t one we were given but one that came from us, a baby that would look like both of us. I wanted to spend nights in with our child instead of going out on dates, and going to children’s movies, and decorating for birthday parties, and taking pictures on the first day of school. I wanted it all. 

And after today, after triumphing over the last ten months, I knew we _could_. We had what it takes. 

“I want to keep it,” I breathed.

Jean perked his head up. He’d been zoning out. And now he wore a confused expression because he probably wasn’t sure he’d heard me right. “Wait, what?”

I smiled, and wrapped my arms around one of his. “I want to keep it.”

He let out a breathless laugh. “Really?”

I nodded. He held me tight. A long quiet moment passed between us. I needed to recover from how quickly my life had just transformed itself. But I was okay. We were okay. And it would stay that way.

“Let’s go out,” I said.

Jean’s head jerked back in surprise. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I want to go out and not be pregnant right now. Not until tomorrow morning. I want it to be just us tonight. And then, I’ll start being pregnant tomorrow.” 

Jean chuckled. “Okay. Whenever you’re ready to go, I’m ready.”

He helped me stand up from the floor, even though I didn’t really need it. I slid the ring on my finger, and it fit perfectly only because Jean had bought me rings before. I changed, put on some mascara, and Jean and I walked out the door hand-in-hand.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're curious, my personal tumblr URL is in-agony-and-ecstasy.tumblr.com and my writing-only fandom-only tumblr URL is the-only-one-in-color.tumblr.com


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